“In general, yes,” David said. “In specific, no. My goal is to run my father’s biotech and pharmaceutical companies in China, not here in the USA.”
“From my conversation with your father, I get the feeling he’s interested in pulling out of China and concentrating his efforts here.”
“Unfortunately, that is the case,” David said. “I am afraid my ownfather and his closest team members have become somewhat counterrevolutionaries. My father has always been a unique man, starting with his worshipping Arnold Schwarzenegger and becoming a bodybuilder and martial-arts devotee while studying biotechnology.”
“I can attest to the martial-arts aspect,” Jack said. “We were having a reasonably pleasant conversation when he unleashed one of those wild martial-arts kicks at my head. Of course, I started it by trying to shove him out of the way.”
“You got into a physical fight with my father?” David questioned with obvious incredulity. “I can’t believe you, Dr. Stapleton. And what surprises me, you came out of it without a scratch.”
“I was saved by your father’s security team,” Jack said. “Who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t shown up. And you can call me Jack. Rescuing me from the slaughterhouse entitles you to be on a first-name basis at an absolute minimum.”
“Jack it is,” David said. “I am currently heavier than my father and have also studied martial arts and done bodybuilding under my father’s direction, but I would never challenge him to a fight, even though he is nearly seventy. You are very brave, Jack.”
“Sometimes foolish but not brave,” Jack said. “But let’s get back to your story. You were calling your father and his peers counterrevolutionaries.”
“That’s correct,” David said. “Especially of late. My generation feels much differently about China today than our parents did. China is ascendant. China is on its way to take its rightful place on the world stage.”
“Are you suggesting there’s a kind of new cultural revolution?” Jack questioned.
“In a fashion,” David said. “China needed Mao to force a break from the stranglehold of the past to create a new mind-set for industrialization and pull China into the twentieth century. Now China needs a new incentive to break from the inferiority complex the country has suffered since the Colonial Period, as well as from the capitalist selfishness like myfather exhibits. My father is a philanthropist, but he thinks of his billions of renminbi as completely his.”
“There is an irony here,” Jack said. “Your father admitted to me that he got his start as a Red Guard in the Mao Cultural Revolution. Now you are in a sense doing the same thing.”
“I suppose that is true,” David said. “But I want to be part of my Chinese heritage. I am proud of it, and I want to be part of the Chinese ascendency.”
“You aren’t afraid you have become too Americanized, having been living here for nine years?” Jack asked. “Will you find it hard to adapt to living back in China?”
“I don’t think I will have any trouble at all,” David said. “We Chinese university-age generation are all on the same page, whether we are in school in Wuhan, or Canberra, or Paris, or Boston. We are of the same mind-set to truly make China great again, pardon the hackneyed phrase. Whereas here in the USA there is depressing divisiveness and a kind of anti-immigrant neotribalism that is getting progressively worse, in China we millennials are coming together.”
“I can’t argue with you there,” Jack said. “Let me ask you something more specific. How did you know that I was being held in the slaughterhouse animal pen?”
“Kang-Dae called me in New York and told me,” David said.
“And why would he do that?” Jack said. There still seemed to be more that Jack didn’t know than what he did.
“It’s a rather complicated story,” David said. “Are you sure you want to hear it.”
“There’s nothing I want to hear more,” Jack said. It didn’t make any sense at all to him, as Ted Markham had told Jack that Kang-Dae had been Wei’s personal assistant for almost forty years. And he acted as if he was totally devoted to the man.
“You have to understand exactly who Kang-Dae is,” David said.
“I was told he originally was a defector from North Korea,” Jack said. “And has been working for your father for practically a lifetime.”
“That’s correct,” David said. “But the important thing is how he became my father’s assistant. My father didn’t hire him on his own accord. Kang-Dae was a Chinese government plant to keep tabs on my father that my father was compelled to hire, and Kang-Dae has continued in the same capacity to this day. It is all rather ironic in that my father has been aware of Kang-Dae’s role practically since day one but never cared. Since Kang-Dae had no family, my father even let him live in a spare room in our house, despite knowing he was, in effect, a spy. I have known Kang-Dae my whole life. He’s family without being family.”
“But why would he go out of his way to tell you I was locked up in the slaughterhouse?” Jack asked. “Obviously your father thinks of me as a distinct liability, as he should. Kang-Dae witnessed our brawl.”
“Because our goals coincide,” David said. “The Chinese government doesn’t want my father to succeed here in the United States, for fear he’ll shut down his companies in China. Same with me and a large contingent of the Chinese interns that are here working in GeneRx.”
“Your father thinks that these last two heart transplants with the pig-grown organs were sabotaged,” Jack said. “Do you think that is true?”
“I know it is true,” David said. “It was a regular old-fashioned conspiracy and a group decision. We thought the best way to delay the program was to reintroduce a pig retrovirus into the cloned retrovirus-free litter of pigs used to clone the customized pigs. I was the one who chose the B virus used, as it was known to infect human cells in culture. What none of us had any idea about was that it would be capable of eliciting a cytokine storm. That took us all by surprise. Actually, we counted on them finding the retrovirus well before the organs were harvested. The original protocol called for such a final check. We don’t know why it wasn’t done, although it is obvious it had something to do with the rapidity of Carol Stewart’s clinical deterioration. It is tragic that the finalcheck wasn’t performed. Unfortunately it’s something I’m afraid I am going to have to live with.”
“Your father thinks that had this sabotage not happened, the two women involved would be alive and well today, ushering in a whole new era in transplant treatment. Do you agree?”
“My father has usually been right in such things,” David said. “And he is probably right about this. It’s why he is a billionaire and most of his colleagues are not. He knew from the moment he first heard about CRISPR/CAS9 that it was a breakthrough technology. He’s absolutely certain it’s going to change the face of clinical medicine. Revolutionizing the organ-transplant field is just the first of a host of amazing things it will be providing.”
“You do understand that I will have to report all this,” Jack said. “At a minimum, I’ll be making sure the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations will be alerted tomorrow morning.” Although he understood everything David had said, in the final analysis it was the death of the two women that bothered Jack the most.
